thanks for sharing this neat story. I played in 2004/2005 but I was so young I couldn't grasp what I was supposed to be doing and rather just used it as a virtual social experience. it's interesting to hear perspective from someone who was already well into adulthood when the game launched, as most people (it seems) who still play that played back then were adolescents and teenagers during the launch of the game, so people like you are becoming rarer and rarer. and at some point those memories will be forgotten and fade away so cheers for documenting this.
I got wow as a 30th birthday present in feb 2005 by my girlfriend, and got hooked. A year later she called it "the worst gift ever given". I still play with 1 person from 2005, we have held together for soon to be 20 years, never met irl but he feels like one of my closest friends. I love your videos, and this walk down memory lane is so much fun to listen to. A couple of memorys I have, that people in our classic guild now struggles to understand is how we killed bosses back in the early days. 5 tanked Vael because of our dps being so low, 1 tanked Ebonroc with the tank fully kitted out in shadow resist gear because we didnt figure out the taunt swap. No real guides or anything. I still prefer the game as it is played now though, it is just so much fun for me trying to minmax buffs and speedy kills. While I do feel nostalgic about the early raids, for me it is more enjoyable how we play it now.
Love this comment, and sorry I never replied sooner. Really appreciate hearing about others' experience in the old days. I remember tanking Vael with a line of wars that would all need to die one after another. It was crazy figuring out these fights with no guides.
Great story man! Ihave a similar story with WoW, however I was much younger. I was around 14 when WoW came out, I also was a huge Warcraft 3 player beforehand. I played on Kel Thuzad from vanilla to WotLK where I fell off until private servers and classic wow came around
I remember reading about a first raid boss kill (Onyxia), downed in January 2005, and had no clue what a boss like this could be. I was still leveling my main human Warlock, around lvl 30, and all those boss-killers were like semi-gods to me! Later that year, around May 2005 , I joined a raid guild - had no clue either about the amount of dedication that the raid group would require - but we were top guild on our server from MC up to Cataclysm. I miss those days, but wouldn't ever have the time today for all the farm and raiding. An absolute great experience!
The saddest memory i have is that i turned down the best guild on the server in TBC.... Turned down an invite to to a World top 20 guild :< But then i hit Furious Gladiator so w/e :D
Epic video! Love the stories, keep it up Jeff! I was also in Suramar back in the day and remember seeing No Quarter and thinking you guys were straight up GODS
I remember those days.. I started during OG wrath, actually it was at the beggining of it and i instantly felt like i was at home in this game. Thankfully i had alot of irl friends who played with me and helped me out, later they even brought me with them into a raiding guild... Soon enough I became very good at the game and i played nearly every hour of every day when i had no other obligations. I was also the first person to get invincible in my guild and third person on the server... The envy was real when i sat mounted in front of Orgimmar auction house as people would surround me. It was such a big deal back then. All said and done i actually dont like playing classic now. It feels like day dream and distant memories. Also my main character is still alive and well.
@@720zone Yes it was! This is why current classic gives me heartache. Dont get me wrong, i love that blizz gave us classic, but all my friends stopped playing and it was never the same. Sure i did meet some cool people in modern classic, but nothing can replace my highschool classmates and me rushing home so that we can play all weekend... Especially during winter break- snow outside, i enjoy my evening in my warm room while leveling in Grizzly Hills.
I started on Suramar server during the public beta. Still play the same main, Tharin. I'd love to hear you talk about the history of the server. I remember the NQ days. That race to open up AQ was epic. When the gate was finally opened, there were so many people there it nearly crashed the server. Good times.
This is an awesome story and video. I'm just now turning 30 but I imagine it must've been awesome to find out about WoW back then. I was still a kid and barely knew what I was doing, but eventually got a shaman to 60 before TBC launched. Super excited to get into the TBC beta for that back then too. This was a wild ride and cool screenshots and videos to go along with it. One thing I've started to dislike over the years is the achievement system. Back in vanilla, achievements didn't need an arbitrary amount of points, the achievement was evident by itself. You saw the hand of rag, thunderfury, full t3 gear, tabard, rare mounts, etc. Then eventually they started just adding bloat achievements, pointless and time consuming. I prefer when we didn't need a UI or points to track the achievement, but something like feats of strength seems more special because it lacks those points and it's just something really unique. You should consider making react videos of the old wow documentaries/interviews from blizzcon. Like the first blizzcon and all those different panels on classes, raids, pvp, etc. Also, there's the Making Of Documentary, that is also divided into sections. The game design section with Jeff Kaplan is really insightful about classic's goal and vision especially when thinking of classic+
Can't thank you enough for this comment man. I always really appreciate the fact that so many wow players are catching up on something that they first experienced as a kid. For me, I often said I was very fortunate that WoW came out when it did, had I been younger I'd have failed out of college for sure. Also really love what you said about achievements being a visible thing. I miss the familiarity with the gear that original classic offers. You can tell exactly what someone has done with one look at their character. In every version beyond the gear became confusing and too similar xpac after xpac. Thank you for the suggestion about reacting to the old stuff. I'll look into it for sure. I love WoW history. I just re-read John Staats diary on WoW Development. Its incredible. Cheers and thank you again for so much great feedback - Jeff
I just found this on the Suramar forums. I recognize names! Whyteagle, Reign, Shivveh, Cornpotato, Bobo & Seles! I can't remember if Mina was also Qina ( I know Qina had a few rhyming names). I've been on Suramar since January '05 so I'm enjoying this, thank you for making this video.
I made our servers 2nd raiding guild because the other one was full. Turned out we ended up beating them on our servers first Nef kill. There is so much min/maxing now and people rush content as fast as possible. Gone are the days where we were all truly discovering this game together and learning how to raid as 40man. Gone are my hopes for a true WoW 2. SoD really didnt have anything to discover. Im not sure even blizzard knows how to recapture the magic. They are subscription and micro transaction farmers now.
Dude that RULES! Current retail is so jammed with flashy pets that nothing stands out, but I remember that Diablo pet being new, and looking so unique, and frankly just awesome, compared to everything else. Love that old school stuff - appreciate you watching and commenting man; thank you!
I was a bit slower then you, but since I was a warlock and not a mage, competition was very low, nobody played warlocks, they were very bad I think in the early patches... So somehow I still ended up being the 3rd lvl 60 warlock on my realm, despite starting a few weeks late. So I was immediately shanghaied into a raiding guild, because they needed warlocks for MC, to banish those damn elementals. And I had to go to Onyxia.,... When are you going to come to Onyxia??? Onyxia is Thursday, come! (I didn't have the Onyxia attunement done, and I was too embarrassed to tell I didn't know what to do, so for a whole month I kept making excuses why I couldn't join... sick grandmothers and stuff like that) But I kept joining the Molten Core raids... So I finally figured out how to attune, but now I was trying to sneakily do it behind the backs of my guild, so I went on 03:00 am BRD runs LOL..... All was fine in the end, I learned to always speak the truth, much easier, and the guild was super, we were very close the rest of vanilla and TBC and for BWL-Naxx were among the server first competitors together with our arch rivals from the Alliance
LOVE this story! It's amazing how these detailed memories stick with you for 20 years. That Ony attunement in the early days was brutal. Really awesome history man; thank you for sharing.
thanks for sharing this neat story. I played in 2004/2005 but I was so young I couldn't grasp what I was supposed to be doing and rather just used it as a virtual social experience. it's interesting to hear perspective from someone who was already well into adulthood when the game launched, as most people (it seems) who still play that played back then were adolescents and teenagers during the launch of the game, so people like you are becoming rarer and rarer. and at some point those memories will be forgotten and fade away so cheers for documenting this.
Appreciate this comment so much! And yea, people like me are "aging out" of the game. Thanks man!
I got wow as a 30th birthday present in feb 2005 by my girlfriend, and got hooked. A year later she called it "the worst gift ever given".
I still play with 1 person from 2005, we have held together for soon to be 20 years, never met irl but he feels like one of my closest friends.
I love your videos, and this walk down memory lane is so much fun to listen to.
A couple of memorys I have, that people in our classic guild now struggles to understand is how we killed bosses back in the early days. 5 tanked Vael because of our dps being so low, 1 tanked Ebonroc with the tank fully kitted out in shadow resist gear because we didnt figure out the taunt swap. No real guides or anything. I still prefer the game as it is played now though, it is just so much fun for me trying to minmax buffs and speedy kills. While I do feel nostalgic about the early raids, for me it is more enjoyable how we play it now.
but wiping for 2 days on Chromaggus was so much fun! (actually I remember it was not really funny when it happened to us for weeks on end. )
Love this comment, and sorry I never replied sooner. Really appreciate hearing about others' experience in the old days. I remember tanking Vael with a line of wars that would all need to die one after another. It was crazy figuring out these fights with no guides.
Thanks for sharing. I love these early vanilla stories. And how the changes shaped before our eyes
Great story telling!
Good vid! Would love to hear some mort stories about the old days.
Seconding this
Really appreciate these comments. Thank you so much.
Damn this is so cool to hear! Would love to hear more stories
im so glad this channel exists
U r a god.
I watched the entire wow-map video too. U r my new symbol for this game. :D
I appreciate this comment so much. Thank you! Made my day.
Great story man! Ihave a similar story with WoW, however I was much younger. I was around 14 when WoW came out, I also was a huge Warcraft 3 player beforehand. I played on Kel Thuzad from vanilla to WotLK where I fell off until private servers and classic wow came around
I remember reading about a first raid boss kill (Onyxia), downed in January 2005, and had no clue what a boss like this could be.
I was still leveling my main human Warlock, around lvl 30, and all those boss-killers were like semi-gods to me!
Later that year, around May 2005 , I joined a raid guild - had no clue either about the amount of dedication that the raid group would require - but we were top guild on our server from MC up to Cataclysm.
I miss those days, but wouldn't ever have the time today for all the farm and raiding.
An absolute great experience!
These are some of my absolute favorite comments. Love hearing about the old-days of wow.
The saddest memory i have is that i turned down the best guild on the server in TBC.... Turned down an invite to to a World top 20 guild :< But then i hit Furious Gladiator so w/e :D
Epic video! Love the stories, keep it up Jeff! I was also in Suramar back in the day and remember seeing No Quarter and thinking you guys were straight up GODS
REALLY appreciate this comment man! I was wondering if any OG Suramar players might run across this. Cheers - thank you!
Also no joke. Pancakes is my #1 favorite food. Trying to eat healthy these days so its been a while, but a stack of pancakes and syrup can't be beat.
Great story and yes, it's validated! Nice to see your old screenshots, I wish I kept mine back from that time ^^!
Really appreciate it man thank you! Yea, I'm very fortunate to have hung on to most of my screenshots. They start in Jan-05.
I remember those days.. I started during OG wrath, actually it was at the beggining of it and i instantly felt like i was at home in this game. Thankfully i had alot of irl friends who played with me and helped me out, later they even brought me with them into a raiding guild... Soon enough I became very good at the game and i played nearly every hour of every day when i had no other obligations.
I was also the first person to get invincible in my guild and third person on the server... The envy was real when i sat mounted in front of Orgimmar auction house as people would surround me. It was such a big deal back then.
All said and done i actually dont like playing classic now. It feels like day dream and distant memories. Also my main character is still alive and well.
LOVE these old stories man, appreciate your sharing. We didn't know it while we were in it, but it was an epic time.
@@720zone Yes it was! This is why current classic gives me heartache. Dont get me wrong, i love that blizz gave us classic, but all my friends stopped playing and it was never the same. Sure i did meet some cool people in modern classic, but nothing can replace my highschool classmates and me rushing home so that we can play all weekend... Especially during winter break- snow outside, i enjoy my evening in my warm room while leveling in Grizzly Hills.
I started on Suramar server during the public beta. Still play the same main, Tharin. I'd love to hear you talk about the history of the server. I remember the NQ days. That race to open up AQ was epic. When the gate was finally opened, there were so many people there it nearly crashed the server. Good times.
Awesome video, keep them coming
This is an awesome story and video. I'm just now turning 30 but I imagine it must've been awesome to find out about WoW back then. I was still a kid and barely knew what I was doing, but eventually got a shaman to 60 before TBC launched. Super excited to get into the TBC beta for that back then too. This was a wild ride and cool screenshots and videos to go along with it. One thing I've started to dislike over the years is the achievement system. Back in vanilla, achievements didn't need an arbitrary amount of points, the achievement was evident by itself. You saw the hand of rag, thunderfury, full t3 gear, tabard, rare mounts, etc. Then eventually they started just adding bloat achievements, pointless and time consuming. I prefer when we didn't need a UI or points to track the achievement, but something like feats of strength seems more special because it lacks those points and it's just something really unique. You should consider making react videos of the old wow documentaries/interviews from blizzcon. Like the first blizzcon and all those different panels on classes, raids, pvp, etc. Also, there's the Making Of Documentary, that is also divided into sections. The game design section with Jeff Kaplan is really insightful about classic's goal and vision especially when thinking of classic+
Can't thank you enough for this comment man. I always really appreciate the fact that so many wow players are catching up on something that they first experienced as a kid. For me, I often said I was very fortunate that WoW came out when it did, had I been younger I'd have failed out of college for sure. Also really love what you said about achievements being a visible thing. I miss the familiarity with the gear that original classic offers. You can tell exactly what someone has done with one look at their character. In every version beyond the gear became confusing and too similar xpac after xpac. Thank you for the suggestion about reacting to the old stuff. I'll look into it for sure. I love WoW history. I just re-read John Staats diary on WoW Development. Its incredible. Cheers and thank you again for so much great feedback - Jeff
Man you are truly lucky to be able to play from the very beginning. amazing story man.
Dude; thank you so much for the comment. Apprec.
I just found this on the Suramar forums. I recognize names! Whyteagle, Reign, Shivveh, Cornpotato, Bobo & Seles! I can't remember if Mina was also Qina ( I know Qina had a few rhyming names). I've been on Suramar since January '05 so I'm enjoying this, thank you for making this video.
Awesome! Thanks for taking the time time to comment! Those early days on Suramar were the glory days.
I made our servers 2nd raiding guild because the other one was full. Turned out we ended up beating them on our servers first Nef kill. There is so much min/maxing now and people rush content as fast as possible. Gone are the days where we were all truly discovering this game together and learning how to raid as 40man. Gone are my hopes for a true WoW 2. SoD really didnt have anything to discover. Im not sure even blizzard knows how to recapture the magic. They are subscription and micro transaction farmers now.
Love the background you offer - and as far as your assessment of what WoW has become...I wish you were wrong, but you're not. Thanks for the comment!
Great vid - that's awesome
Thank you so much. Sort of self-gratifying story-telling. :)
Still rocking my mini Diablo pet. Came back to Wow to try SoD after a long break.
Dude that RULES! Current retail is so jammed with flashy pets that nothing stands out, but I remember that Diablo pet being new, and looking so unique, and frankly just awesome, compared to everything else. Love that old school stuff - appreciate you watching and commenting man; thank you!
Made me think of all the servers out there that had their unique world of players and guilds and how all of that is gone 😭
very nice video. beautiful. thank you!
Thank you so much!!
big mara pulls ❤️❤️❤️
I still have my swift palamino. :3
That's AWESOME! There's not many of us. cheers!
0:59 caution, hide the serial
This is so cool 😎
Appreciate that so much man. Thank you!
In classic + I want old school mounts
👍
Yes, but what about Chevtate??
And Rebarr!
I was a bit slower then you, but since I was a warlock and not a mage, competition was very low, nobody played warlocks, they were very bad I think in the early patches...
So somehow I still ended up being the 3rd lvl 60 warlock on my realm, despite starting a few weeks late.
So I was immediately shanghaied into a raiding guild, because they needed warlocks for MC, to banish those damn elementals.
And I had to go to Onyxia.,... When are you going to come to Onyxia??? Onyxia is Thursday, come! (I didn't have the Onyxia attunement done, and I was too embarrassed to tell I didn't know what to do, so for a whole month I kept making excuses why I couldn't join... sick grandmothers and stuff like that) But I kept joining the Molten Core raids...
So I finally figured out how to attune, but now I was trying to sneakily do it behind the backs of my guild, so I went on 03:00 am BRD runs LOL.....
All was fine in the end, I learned to always speak the truth, much easier, and the guild was super, we were very close the rest of vanilla and TBC and for BWL-Naxx were among the server first competitors together with our arch rivals from the Alliance
LOVE this story! It's amazing how these detailed memories stick with you for 20 years. That Ony attunement in the early days was brutal. Really awesome history man; thank you for sharing.
Meh, by this logic stuff like "Duel-icious" I would have a day 1 achivement
Fair enough. I officially approve you for duel-icious og. Appreciate the comment.
@@720zone I mean the OG mount is much cooler LOL
0:37 is that you with 30?
you have a white beard? lol
Hah. Closer to 50.
@@720zone you looked like an absolute G should have kept that great beard :D